Aztecs roll into first round

By DAVID HELDRETH, STAFF WRITER

Tuesday

May 18, 2010 at 8:32 PMMay 18, 2010 at 8:34 PM

BARSTOW • The Barstow baseball team returned to form at the right time.

The Aztecs broke out of their worst slump of the season with a 12-1 victory against Century a CIF-Southern Section Division 4 wild-card game on Tuesday. Barstow had been without pitcher/shortstop Aaron Sanchez in recent weeks, when it lost four of its last six games.

However, Sanchez and Barstow's bats returned on Tuesday. Sanchez had nine strikeouts and only allowed four hits in the game. His teammates did their part, putting the ball in play and finding the holes in the Centurions' defense. Barstow had 12 hits, including a solo home run by Tyler Fulghum to lead off the fifth inning. The Aztecs had eight players get at least one hit.

"We were back to our roots today," Barstow coach Roland Fite said. "We looked like ourselves again. Aaron pitched well, guys were playing their positions and we took our time at the plate. We have to make their pitcher work to be successful on offense."

Barstow's Daniel Rodriguez waited for his pitches and went 3-for-5 with five RBIs.

Although the Aztecs were hitting well, they got some help in the form of errors by the Century defense. The Centurions committed six errors in the game, and five of them came in the first three innings when Barstow scored eight runs. Ryan Wainer started the scoring when he came home after Century starting pitcher Frankie Lopez missed a throw from catcher Anthony Lopez.

Century assistant coach Mark Elway said the weather and Barstow's crowd affected the Centurions.

"It was a bad game for us," Elway said. "I hate to say this, but the field conditions probably got to us. It's hard with the wind blowing as hard as it is and you have no dugout. It's a heck of a home field advantage when you have the football team behind the visitors yelling and chanting. It was intimidating."

With the wild-card game now behind them, Fite said the Aztecs will begin preparing for Northview today. Barstow will travel to Covina to face the No. 4-seeded Vikings in the first round on Friday.

"We're just going to come out and have some good practices this week," Fite said. "This is why taking first in the league would have been nice. We could have been off until Friday, but we're used to having two games in a week. We'll be ready."